Conventionally, a railway vehicle forming a train like a bullet train is equipped with a refuse reservoir for storing refuse produced inside the vehicle, a water tank for storing water such as drinking water, and a sewage tank for storing sewage produced inside the vehicle. Those reservoir and tanks are provided in the lower part of the vehicle.
Operations for train maintenance, like removal of refuse from the refuse reservoir, feeding of water to the water tank and suction of sewage from the sewage tank, are performed at train stations where the train stops and in train maintenance grounds.
Among the above mentioned operations, removal of refuse is performed directly by a laborer who opens a lid, provided on the outer side of the vehicle and covering a passage leading the refuse reservoir, and takes out the refuse collected in the reservoir by hand.
Feeding of water is also performed by a laborer, who attaches a hose extending from a feed pump provided on the ground to a faucet of the water tank manually. Suction of sewage is also performed by a laborer, who attaches a hose extending from a suction pump provided on the ground to suck the sewage to a faucet of the sewage tank manually.
However, such operations are so-called three-K (a coined word generated from the first letter of three adjectives in Japanese language, that is, “Kiken (dangerous)”, “Kitanai (dirty)” and “Kitsui (hard)”) operations. Therefore, there are not many young people who are willing to take over such operations. This tendency is expected to go high in the near future, due to decline of the birthrate. Accordingly, automation of such operations has been desired.
In addition, the laborer will be exposed to a magnetic field of a super conductive magnet during the operations if the maintenance of a railway vehicle forming a maglev train is performed in the conventional manner. To avoid such danger, the super conductive magnet has to be demagnetized. Once the super conductive magnet is demagnetized, however, it takes long to magnetize the super conductive magnet once again. Thus operating performance of the train is lowered. Moreover, on a track of the maglev train, a guideway for guiding a maglev train is provided. Since the sidewalls of th e guideway, which stand on both sides of the maglev train, hinder easy access to the lower part of the vehicle, automation of such train maintenance operations is strongly desired in this field.